Claude Garamond

Claude Garamont (ca. 1505 – 1561), known commonly as Claude Garamond, was a French type designer, publisher and punch-cutter from Paris. Considered one of the leading type designers of all time, he is recognized to this day for the elegance of his typefaces. Several contemporary typefaces, including those currently known as Garamond, Granjon, and Sabon, reflect his influence. Garamond was the first to specialize in type design and punch-cutting as a service to others. As the first type designer and punch-cutter to retail his punches to other printers, Garamond helped to shape the future of commercial printing and to spur the widespread dissemination of new typefaces. Garamond apprenticed with Antoine Augereau and was perhaps also trained by Simon de Colines. He later worked with Geoffroy Tory, whose interests in humanist typography and the ancient Greek capital letterforms, or majuscules, may have informed Garamond's work.

Career

Garamond's early life has been the subject of some research. Dates as early as 1480 and as late as c. 1510 have been proposed for his birth, the latter being preferred by the French ministry of culture. In favour of a later date, his will of 1561 states that his mother was then still alive. He married twice, to Guillemette Gaultier and, after her death, to Ysabeau Le Fevre.